This quick-adjust pipe wrench has a tension spring inside the jaw structure which serves to hold the grip. The wrench uses a sliding jaw with a face parallel to the fixed jaw which means it is also effective on flat-faced nuts. Rack teeth on the sliding jaw engage with teeth in an arc on the inner end of the swinging handle. This patent is an improvement on Webb and Hildreth's Feb. 6, 1906 patent (no. 811,885).

The Webb and Hildreth Automatic Wrench was advertised in the Jan. 28, 1909 "Iron Age."